Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Overtime On My Ass

Greetings all! I know it's been awhile since my last entry, so I thought I'd update you on my latest happenings. I recently went whitewater rafting on the Nile in Jinja, and let me tell you, it was quite an adventure. I went with some friends, Jessie Ray, Bubba and Unibomber (just a nick-name, but apt, I think). I'll start at the beginning.

Jessie Ray has a water phobia, so she was quite nervous about the whole thing. The rest of us were pretty pumped up, and the day of the event came quickly. Right away 2 South Africans decided we looked normal enough and decided to tag along with us, since there were 6 people to a boat. The day started out ok, beginning with practicing the important things like flipping the raft and getting back in it, as well as following important commands. The flip was frightening, because we were in calm water and everyone fell on top of each other, and Jessie Ray and I came up under the boat. We looked at each other, and we could both see how scared the other was. But then we came to our first rapids, and everything seemed ok. We went over Bujagali Falls, didn't flip, and made it through some other big class 5's, including Silver Back, which was huge and felt more like a mack truck hitting me in the face than water, but after pinballing around the boat and whacking people with my paddle, I stayed in and everything was ok.

I don't know what time it was, but we hit a calm stretch about 3 km long where we could swim and take pee breaks, and also had a light lunch of delicious pineapple and some biscuits. Everyone in my boat must have eaten too much, because the next rapid, called Overtime, was not quite as joyful as all the rest had been. Our guide warned us, again and again, we had to do exactly as he said, because this is the one shallow rapid of the day, and if we flip on this one, someone is going to get seriously injured. Well, we didn't listen. It started bad from the beginning. We got stuck on the rock at the very top, we were supposed to go to the right of this rock, and instead went to the left. We soon flipped the boat, and I remember very little of the next, say 30 seconds or so. I remember grabbing onto my paddle for dear life, and just relaxing. I hit my butt on about 4 big rocks, and pretty hard, but then finally came to some deeper water (this is probably the point where I went over the 12 foot waterfall). I must have had my eyes closed, because next a safety kayaker is screaming at me to grab ahold of his kayak so he can paddle me to safety. He got me to a different raft where someone else yelled at me to let go of my paddle (I have no idea how I held onto it for so long) and then someone pulled me into the boat. I landed in a heap at the bottom, and didn't want to move. The guide from that boat asked me if I was ok, and all I could answer was, "I don't know, I think so, let me check." I was of course fine, since I am writing this blog now. All I suffered was a giant purple/black shades of grey goose-egg on my right cheek. It's slowly going down, though even now it still can be difficult to sit properly.

Bubba had the same fate as me. He was the first one to go over the waterfall, and has a bruised tail bone. Unibomber went over on his stomach, and cut up his arms, but not bad enough to require stitches. The SA woman also bruised her tail bone, and the SA man got scratched up like Unibomber. Only one in our group went unscathed, and that's because she got stuck. Jessie Ray ended up somehow standing still at the top of the waterfall on some rocks. A safety kayaker managed to wedge his kayak into some rocks near the base of the waterfall, climbed up to Jessie Ray and helped her slide on her bum down to a point where she could then jump over the waterfall and into a waiting raft. What an adventure.

After we all survived, without one serious injury like we had been warned would happen, I think we felt pretty invincible. I know I did. After that, I was afraid of no rapid, and asked the guide to go the hardest route on all of them. At the last rapid, where the boats have a 90% chance of flipping, we managed to keep afloat. So on the one rapid of the day where you are absolutely not supposed to flip, we did, and on the one where its pretty certain your going to, we managed to not flip. I supposed its just characteristic of me, I tend to go the opposite way I am told. Oh well. I conquered the Nile River, and its shallow Class-5 rapid, Overtime. Hoo Ahhh!!!!